commons.wikimediaThere’s a really easy way to be happy, but apparently it only works if you’re very attractive.
A new paper in the Journal of Happiness Studies found that good looking people were happier than other people – but only when they’re thinking about how attractive they are, The Independent reports.
Don’t worry, there is scientific evidence behind the vanity. Lukasz Kaczmarek and his colleagues at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland undertook the study, which investigated whether how really, really, ridiculously good looking people think they are is linked to their levels of happiness.
The team of researchers asked 97 students to fill out two questionnaires, one which measured their ‘body satisfaction’ and the other their ‘life satisfaction’.
To gauge whether hot people were happier they mixed up the order of the questions, with one half of the participants starting with the body satisfaction questions and the other half the life satisfaction ones.
What they found was people with a lot of self-confidence in their looks were happier than those who considered themselves less attractive – but only if they started by answering the body satisfaction questions first.
Flickr In conclusion, the researchers found that if we are thinking about one particular aspect of our lives, like how attractive we are, this will dominate our feelings a disproportionately high amount at that moment.
The paper concluded: “Body satisfaction as a focusing illusion may need to be considered by scientists as well as lay people who try to look better and be happier”.
So that’s why really attractive people always look so happy with themselves…
